Victoire rides north from Oxford, forcing herself not to look back at the tower and friends she has lost. She frames the moment as unthinkable and unprecedented, a rupture where history becomes fluid, and recognizes that revolution always seems impossible until it happens.

She recounts her beginnings in Haiti in 1820, her mother’s flight with the exiled queen to England, and their move to Paris. In the Desjardins household, her mother died unattended during an illness that then swept the house; Victoire survived, along with Madame Desjardins and her daughters.

Victoire was then kept in a twilight state of servitude, isolated and overworked, taught to be grateful compared to a maligned Haiti. Searching the late professor’s papers, she found a path out: Oxford’s Institute invited the “talented Miss Desgraves,” creating the legal and practical conditions for her escape.

True liberation came with Anthony Ribben and Hermes. Through them, she reclaimed a Haitian identity, pride in Kreyòl, and a view of the Haitian Revolution as a beacon. She learned that colonizers fear the unimaginable—and that this fear is a sign of impending change.

Now she carries envelopes with advice and contacts in Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Paris. She holds Griffin’s unopened letter naming Martlet, Oriel, and Rook, ending with the promise, “We’re not the only ones.” Laden with silver and grief, she refuses the seduction of death, knows Letty will hunt her, and boards a ship to America to keep moving.

She anticipates cruelty and indifference but hopes for allies. Anthony called victory inevitable; Victoire insists it must be forced by ingenuity, persistence, suffering, and sacrifice, across many fronts of empire. She ends with a Kreyòl phrase she once teased Anthony with—an affirmation of uncertainty and defiance that she carries into the fight.